Fund Doubles to $20K Through ECOLOGIES Partnership with Knight Foundation; Works by Thomas Bils, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Pallavi Sen Join the Museum’s Permanent Collection
(MIAMI, FL — December 3, 2025) — The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) and Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) are pleased to announce the selection of the eighth annual NADA Acquisition Gift for PAMM, an acquisition gift which provides funding for PAMM curators to acquire artworks for the museum’s permanent collection from NADA Miami. This year marks a significant milestone, as ECOLOGIES—a programming partnership between Knight Foundation, NADA, PAMM, and CULTURED—has doubled funding for the initiative.
Due to the ECOLOGIES partnership, PAMM curators Jennifer Inacio, Maritza M. Lacayo, and Fabiana Sotillo were able to select three works for the museum’s permanent collection. The artworks are Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s Hishima (Pumpkin), 2021 (ABRA Gallery), Thomas Bils’ Phone Wallet Keys (2025) (Baker—Hall), and Pallavi Sen’s Manokamana Kala Kendra (2021) (Twelve Gates Arts).
The selected artists each meaningfully strengthen PAMM’s collection. Hakihiiwe’s work from ABRA Gallery, marks the first time the museum has acquired a piece from an international gallery at NADA—an especially significant moment given his established career, recent inclusion in the Venice Biennale, and his position as an Indigenous Venezuelan artist with a celebrated institutional record. Pallavi Sen’s work from Twelve Gates Arts expands the collection in another way: her practice draws on folklore and the power of women gathering in conversation with nature—themes that feel especially relevant to Miami’s geographic and cultural context, while also offering an opportunity to bring an Indian artist into the collection. And with Thomas Bils’ work from Baker—Hall, PAMM deepens its commitment to the local community, acquiring a Miami-based artist at NADA for the first time and supporting one of the city’s own galleries.
“We’re thrilled to once again make acquisitions at NADA Miami for PAMM’s permanent collection, and this year is especially meaningful thanks to the doubling of the fund through ECOLOGIES and the Knight Foundation, which allowed us to acquire three works for the first time,” said PAMM Associate Curator Maritza M. Lacayo, Curator Jennifer Inacio, and Curatorial Assistant Fabiana Sotillo. “This year’s selection—ranging from Hakihiiwe’s delicate works on paper, Sen’s detailed watercolors, and local artist Bils’ photorealistic paintings—expands PAMM’s collection in significant new ways. Together, they deepen the museum’s geographic, cultural, and conceptual reach and allow PAMM to further its mission of celebrating and presenting art as a catalyst for meaningful human interaction, communication, and exchange.”
“This year marks a particularly meaningful moment for the NADA Acquisition Gift, and we’re grateful to the Knight Foundation’s partnership through ECOLOGIES for helping us double the fund and expand the impact of this initiative,” said NADA Executive Director Heather Hubbs. “We’re always delighted to collaborate with PAMM, Miami’s flagship museum, and it’s a privilege to support their curators in bringing three remarkable artists into such a robust, growing collection. At NADA, we take pride in creating opportunities that our exhibitors may not otherwise have access to, while ensuring that the local community remains at the center of what we do. This year’s selections reflect that mission, and we’re truly thrilled to see these works find a permanent home at PAMM.”
ABOUT THE SELECTED ARTISTS
SHEROANAWE HAKIHIIWE – ABRA GALLERY
Venezuelan Yanomami artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s work preserves and rearticulates the oral memory, cosmogony, and ancestral traditions of his community in the Upper Orinoco. Working with handmade paper, community-produced artist books, and, most prominently, refined minimalist drawing, he distills the Yanomami’s deep relationship to the surrounding landscape into a visual language that is both contemporary and rooted in Indigenous knowledge. His practice operates as an evolving archive—bridging past and present, personal and collective experience—and asserts an alternative artistic canon that expands the visibility of Indigenous perspectives within the global art dialogue.
PALLAVI SEN – TWELVE GATES ARTS
The Indian-born interdisciplinary artist Pallavi Sen explores craft tradition, pedagogical practice, and domestic space in her practice, drawing from South Asian textile heritage—particularly jamdani weaving and the sixty-four kalā (arts/skills) of Hindustani tradition—while engaging with global craft histories. Manokamana Kala Kendra envisions an idealized center for textile arts, its title translating to “the art center of the heart’s desire” (Manokamana: the desire of one’s heart/mind; Kala: art; Kendra: center). Sen populates this imagined space with figures drawn from her intimate circle—herself, her sister, her brother-in-law, and a family friend who shares a devotion to textiles—all gathered to examine newly woven fabric in a scene that conflates studio, classroom, and domestic space.
THOMAS BILS – BAKER—HALL
The Miami-based painter Thomas Bils is a master of making beauty out of the mundane, a style coined “Proustian Americana”. Raised in central Florida during the early years of his childhood, Bils captures the seemingly small moments that make up a larger story of danger, adolescent-isolation, and drug-use through specific, miniscule shots. Charged with nostalgia and unease, these portraits of isolated scenes such as in Phone Wallet Keys depicting a Social Security card pinched by a weathered thumb, inspire a pause to admire the details and the confidential information within. Bils’ paintings are an invaluable snapshot of the timeless American experience.
Now in its eighth iteration, the NADA Acquisition Gift for PAMM was designed to enhance the relationship between the museum and the fair’s diverse roster of exhibiting galleries and artists, and provides an opportunity for NADA to support and engage with the art institutions of Miami-Dade County in exciting and dynamic ways. The Gift is historically funded by ticket sales of NADA Miami, with this year’s matched by Knight Foundation.
